Hawks keep on rolling

Friday, January 13, 2012

Joe Marchilena photo Merrimack's Dimitri Floras dunks over two Timberlane players during Tuesday's win.

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Joe Marchilena photo Merrimack's Jared Peabody tries to get a shot off over Timberlane's Evan Bidgood during Tuesday's game.

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Joe Marchilena photo Merrimack's Tyler Gendron goes in for a dunk during Tuesday's win over Timberlane.

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Joe Marchilena photo Merrimack's Brad Jarry and Timberlane's Kamar Shields reach for a rebound during Tuesday's game.

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Joe Marchilena photo Merrimack's Dimitri Floras dunks over two Timberlane players during Tuesday's win.

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MERRIMACK – The Merrimack High School boys basketball team got to do what it loves Tuesday night.

Whether the Tomahawks will be able to do it consistently during the rest of the Division I season remains to be seen.

Merrimack made turnovers and defensive rebounds into fast breaks and points, running all over Timberlane in a 65-29 win that improved the ’Hawks to 4-1 in the division.

Jeff Giannelli led the way for Merrimack with 18 points while Jared Peabody and Tyler Gendron added 10 points apiece and Dimitri Floras chipped in with eight points. The ’Hawks led 20-0 at the end of the first quarter, and everyone available on the varsity bench got on the floor. And throughout the game, the running never stopped.

“They love to run up and down the court,” Merrimack coach Tim Goodridge said. “There is no doubt about that. If other teams let us run up and down the court, we’ll do it. But when you get other teams that really know the game and slow it down, it’s not going to be that easy.”

That’s one thing that Goodridge feels his team still needs to work on before it can say its ready for the tournament.

“I think sometimes, we had an inability to run a half-court offense,” he said. “We need to work on that. If we’re in the tournament and we’re down two and we really need a basket, we need to be able to screen, pick or do whatever we need to do to get that big basket when we need it. We’re a little way away from that and we need to work on it.”

The ’Hawks lone loss came over a week ago in a 64-60 defeat at the hands of Trinity, and gave Merrimack a chance to regroup and reevaluate.

“Trinity kind of woke us up a little bit, that we have to continue to work,” Goodridge said. “We played pretty hard in all aspects of the game and we’re trying to continue to improve. We have quite the corps of seniors here, they’ve been around a long time, but we’re still a fairly young team.”

Merrimack is in an interesting spot in the standings entering Friday’s games. Four teams – the ’Hawks, Trinity, Nashua South and Alvirne – are tied for the top spot at 4-1; North and Pinkerton are right behind at 3-1 and there are eight teams that are either 3-2 or 2-3.

The ’Hawks will get a boost later this month with the return of senior Kyle Richardson, who has been out with a knee injury.

“He’s a defensive rebounder,” Goodridge said. “We’re hoping to get him back in two or three weeks. He’ll really help us out defensively. I think, if we’re lacking, it’s our interior defensive presence, even though Jeff Giannelli and Connor Whelan do a great job, he would give us one more addition.”

Merrimack gets some time off, with its next game scheduled against Keene at home Jan. 20.